Believe it or not, one of the most significant contributions that can be
made is to use the software, tell us what works and what doesn’t, and help us
track down any problems. We spend a lot of time and resources on testing, but
there is no test like the real-world, trying-to-get-some-useful-work done
testing that our users provide.

Another great way to help the project is to subscribe to the support mailing
lists and help other users solve problems. This allows the developers to spend
more time writing code, and helps develop a sense of community within the
project.

Another great way to help other users is by writing documentation or
improving existing documentation.

If you are a java developer and have the ability to write code for the
project, we can use your help. There is a large mountain of work to do. You
can start by submitting patches for something that you want to have improved,
or, if you prefer, we’ll be glad to help you find something useful to do.

Frequent contributors will be considered for “commit” access to the code
repository. Other requirements include a certain amount of general agreement
with the direction of the project. Committers are entitled to vote on project
issues that come up from time to time.

We have immediate needs for developers who can fill the following roles:

Documentation Manager.

Release Manager.

The internal structure of the Font package has been improved, and is ready
for functional improvements.
Although we have resources to handle these tasks, those resources could be
redeployed if someone came along with a desire to do this work.

We need to consider methods for caching the FOTree and AreaTree data
structures to disk so that files of arbitrary size can be handled.
The Java 1.4 memory-mapped files might be a convenient mechanism to handle this,
but other ideas are welcom.

If you would like to contribute financially to the project, there are several
good reasons to do so. The main point behind open source software is
not its low price tag, but the availability of the source code, the ability to
make it do what needs to be done. Free (as in free beer) or low-cost is nice,
but in reality nothing is free. Contributions you make help keep the project’s
momentum going. We know of developers who would love to spend twelve hours a day
on FOray instead of four, but that have to make a living somewhere. We would
love to have the funds to help them do that.

When you contribute to FOray, 5% of your contribution goes to SourceForge,
and 5% goes to the Apache Software Foundation. Both of these institutions
benefit FOray and its users greatly, and we want to support them. The remainder
goes toward tools, books, equipment, and direct developer support. To
financially contribute to FOray, visit the
FOray
Donation page.